


Heaven Hath No Fury Like an Angel on a Moped

by brightly_lit



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Driving, Drug Use, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 23:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16438778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightly_lit/pseuds/brightly_lit
Summary: There's an angel going around smiting inconsiderate drivers--and now Dean just might be in trouble himself.





	Heaven Hath No Fury Like an Angel on a Moped

Sam looked at his ringing phone. "It's Jody," he said, surprised. He answered and put it on speaker.

"Hey, guys," came her voice through the phone. "I know you just left, but ... I just got in a call about something that sounds like a case for you."

"Sure, Jody. What is it?" Sam asked, that characteristic gentleness in his voice that he and Dean always got when talking to one of their favorite ladies.

"Well ... we've got a guy fleeing a scene in a short black Subaru and two bodies with eyes burned out. Witnesses say all the guy did was put his hand on their foreheads."

Sam and Dean looked at each other. "We're on it," said Sam.

"Anything else you've got that could lead us to the right guy?" Dean asked her.

"Uh ... apparently he has a fancy ... beard."

"... 'Fancy'?"

"Yeah, kinda ... bushy, long, and ... flat ... bottomed."

"'Flat bottomed'?" repeated Dean, bewildered. "Like ... King Tut?"

"Exactly like King Tut," said Jody, sounding relieved not to have to try to explain further. "They say he was headed west on I-90 out of Sioux Falls." Sam raised his eyebrows. That was right where they were.

"Got it. Thanks, Jody," said Dean.

"No, thank you boys for all your help."

"It's no problem," Dean insisted.

"'Bye, Jody," Sam said warmly, before hanging up.

Dean shook his head. "What's with all the hipster angel suits lately?"

"And demon suits," Sam noted.

"Anyway, what's a 'short' Subaru?" Dean asked ... right as a black car forced its way between the Impala and the car in front of them. A Subaru--short enough to evidently convince its driver it could fit in any space in traffic. It looked like a regular Subaru station wagon, halved.

"Aw--why??" Dean complained. "There's miles of space between every other car out here; why'd he have to get in _right here_?"

"Well, you were tailgating, or he wouldn't have had any trouble merging, " Sam pointed out helpfully.

Dean gave him that look. "Sam," he growled.

"Anyway, to answer your question, he seems ... nervous. Desperate to get on the highway as fast as possible."

"What? Angels don't get nervous."

Dean got in the adjacent lane and eased up beside the Subaru, both of them peering over at its driver ... who was hunched down in his seat like he really didn't want to be seen, fiddling anxiously with a bushy beard that was confined just to his chin, his cheeks and jaw otherwise bare. He fumbled for something he finally got hold of and brought to his mouth. A cloud of smoke that definitely didn't come from a cigarette suddenly filled the car.

"And a stoner, too??" Dean complained. "Man, that angel was really scraping the bottom of the barrel."

"No, Dean," Sam said, watching the guy carefully before urging Dean to get back behind him so they could follow him, "like you say, angels don't get nervous. Either this is not our guy ...."

"Or that angel threw out that meatsuit like a White House intern's stained dress."

Sam made a little face at his metaphor, but couldn't disagree. "Just don't tailgate this time," he said in that ostensibly inoffensive way that always made Dean wonder whether he really wasn't judging or he was the most passive-aggressive man in the world. Dean gave him that look again. Sam diffidently didn't look back ... because he really didn't notice Dean's glare, or because he knew full well and was passive-aggressively avoiding it? Dean said nothing ... but reluctantly eased off the gas.

Conveniently, Mr. Twitchy of the Abbreviated Subaru got off the highway not two exits later, at a rest area. Sam and Dean followed. After two more large puffs of smoke, he abruptly flew out of the car, coming to rest on the grass just in front of it, to not-really-nibble anxiously on some Corn Nuts. Sam and Dean, watching from a few spots away, got out of the Impala and headed in his direction.

For as paranoid as he was, somehow he didn't seem to see them until Dean said, "Hey," whereupon he flinched so hard he flung his Corn Nuts. "Aw, no need to waste 'em," Dean growled, seeing the Corn Nuts scattered upon the grass. "We just wanted to talk."

"Why?" the guy demanded. "About what?"

"See anything, uh ... unusual today?" Dean asked.

"Like what? What do you mean?" The guy's eyes were huge, hysterical. He was not an angel. "Wait--are you cops??"

Sam laughed, warm and friendly. "We're definitely not cops," he said, playing 'good cop.' 

He was about to go on about how the guy could therefore feel free to share with them any odd things he might have witnessed that day, when somehow with this one statement, the guy leaped straight to "... Oh, are you ... 'looking'? 'Cos ... yeah, I've got some in my car. Kind of a lot. I'm usually just a buyer, but ... I've played 'middle-man' before."

"That's a respectable-sounding way of saying 'dealer,'" Dean muttered. "No. No, thanks. We just heard that you saw something weird, like ... a couple of guys getting their eyes burned out --"

The guy was up and on his feet in a flash. "No! Stay away from me!"

"Whoever he is, we want to catch him, too," Sam insisted in that warm, reassuring voice he was so good at. "So whatever you can tell us, we want to know."

"Oh! Oh." The guy slumped against a young tree. "Yeah," he said. He started shaking. Clouds of pot smoke evidently hadn't been able to soothe the horror of what he saw ... or maybe did. "I didn't think anyone would believe me, but ... there was this guy! In a parking lot. Just walked up to this couple. He put his hands on their foreheads, and ... oh, God."

"What did he look like?" Dean demanded intently.

"He was so weird! He was dressed like a businessman, but he was riding this tiny motorcycle, like a-- almost like a moped--but in the fast lane, no helmet, and he sat up perfectly straight, not looking around or anything, like he was some kind of robot. Going, like, _exactly_ the speed limit. I guess there was some altercation because he was going the speed limit in the fast lane. That couple tailgated him a while, then went around him and cut him off--like, slammed on their brakes, like they wanted him to crash. They were flipping him off all the while--real dicks, but ... they didn't deserve _that_."

"Kinda sounds like they did," Dean said briskly, while Sam and the guy looked at him agog. "Okay, you got anything besides 'like a businessman'? Hair color, color of his suit, anything?"

"He was dressed ... well, he looked kind of like ... like .... There he is!"

As one, they all turned to see someone on a tiny motorcycle exit the highway and pull into the rest area, going at a slow, uniform speed to the motorcycle parking area, where he parked precisely in the middle of the spot. "Man, you weren't kidding about the sitting-up-straight. Looks like he's just coming home from finishing school." Dean shook his head, watching. It almost didn't look like it could be real.

The motorcycle guy went directly to a couple of twentysomethings Sam and Dean had noticed a while back, weaving in and out of traffic like they owned the highway. In fact, they'd blasted past Sam and Dean on the onramp in Sioux Falls after the lanes had already merged, going on the gravelly shoulder to do it, and Dean had allowed it because he knew if he really wanted to, Baby would destroy them in a race. But he didn't want to, because in close quarters like that, Baby could have gotten pointlessly scratched by a couple of douchebags, and obviously he wasn't about to risk that. After an exchange of a few words, the twentysomethings acting exactly as obnoxious and self-satisfied as Dean expected, the motorcycle guy put his hands on their foreheads, and --

Dean and Sam ran toward them with a shout, but it was too late. Witnesses screamed and scattered. "What the hell!" Dean yelled.

Sam was dialing madly. "Cas!" he cried when he got through. "We've got an angel problem. There's a guy here, smiting--just smiting everyone!"

"Bad drivers," beard guy said helpfully.

"Nah--if it was that, he'd have already smited you," Dean informed him dryly.

Beard guy looked thrown off, but he went on, "No, I mean--that's what he said to that couple in the parking lot. He was lecturing them about endangering people on the road, saying something about how humans who can't respect other humans' safety 'don't deserve space on the earth,' how it should be left to the meek and considerate--"

Sam had put the phone on speaker so Cas could hear him. "Do you know of any angels who would do that?" Sam asked Cas breathlessly.

After only a moment of consideration, Cas said, "Now that Lucifer has been freed ... yes, perhaps. There was an angel he took with him when he was cast out of heaven, Valadriel, not because Valadriel shared his dismissive view of humanity, but because our father also disapproved of Valadriel's tough stance on which humans should be allowed to live. What this man is describing is aligned with his philosophy. He smote any human he considered dangerous to the others."

Dean watched as the angel calmly walked through the hysterical crowd--in their direction. He must indeed be after beard stoner. "I think that's our guy."

"Any idea how we can beat him, Cas?" Sam asked quickly.

"Well ... after he left heaven, Lucifer never allowed him to return. It was always said he missed our father terribly. Perhaps--"

"Got it. Thanks, Cas," Dean said as motorcycle guy--Valadriel--drew near. "Look," Dean addressed him reasonably, "I know this guy's kind of a douche, but you gotta ease up on all this smiting. Humans are imperfect. That's how we're made. So if someone smokes a little too much weed, or forces his way in on the highway when there's plenty of other, better places for him to ease into traffic, or if he wastes a bunch of Corn Nuts for no reason--"

"You are rude and inconsiderate," the angel said, only it looked like--it really seemed more like--he was talking to Dean?! "You flagrantly flaunt the speed limit--in your solid-steel car, which is far more of a lethal weapon than most vehicles on the road in this time period. You follow much too closely. You drink and drive. For that matter, a car of that age probably should be retired for safety reasons--"

"You take that back, you son of a bitch!" Sam had to hold him back--then try to run with him as the angel reached for Dean's forehead ....

... And suddenly mumbled, "Winchester? This is the foretold vessel of Michael?" He withdrew his hand, as Dean and Sam breathed sighs of relief.

The angel frowned at them disapprovingly. "These are the Winchesters? Whatever must my father think?" he said, nevertheless turning away.

"We're pretty good friends with Chuck!" Dean called after him, emboldened by his retreat, flinching when Valadriel turned around at that, the threatening hand outstretched again.

"'Chuck'?" he demanded, as if he couldn't believe Dean would refer to him so informally.

"What, do you prefer 'Charles'?" Dean retorted.

He was really thinking about smiting him anyway, Dean could tell, but reluctantly, he walked away, back perfectly straight, to his motorcycle.

"What the hell are we going to do about this guy?" Dean asked Sam ... when suddenly the point became moot as Lucifer appeared before him.

"There you are!" he cried gaily, taking Valadriel by the arm. "I've been looking all over for you!" he scolded. "But I figured out where you must be when we got a sudden influx of bad drivers in hell. So, come on, back home with you. Leave the humans to their own self-destruction; they die soon enough, anyway--no need for help from you!"

A battle with Lucifer in the middle of a well-populated rest area was not what anyone needed right now, especially when they had no better ideas for how to defeat him than the last time they saw him, so Sam and Dean tried to hide behind that small, young tree--to no avail, apparently, as Lucifer called, "Hello, boys! Looking good. That tree is slimming!" before vanishing with a dismayed-looking Valadriel.

Sam and Dean crept out from behind the tree, holstering the weapons they'd automatically drawn at the sight of Lucifer. Then their eyes fell on beard guy, letting out a cloud of smoke so thick they couldn't see his face for ten solid seconds. 

Dean shook his head. "Seriously, dude, cut back." He saw the bodies, and the people on their cell phones calling the cops, eyeing Sam and Dean, who did seem, as ever, somehow to be at the heart of it all. 

"Let's split." He paused only a second over a couple of Corn Nuts right by the sidewalk, sitting virtually untouched by dirt on a pillow of grass, then caught sight of Sam's diffident non-expression and scowled, beelining for the car. "C'mon, hurry it up," he growled, though Sam somehow actually made it to the car before he did. It was those freakishly long legs.

On the onramp after calling Jody and telling her the case was resolved enough that she wasn't likely to find any such bodies lying around again, Dean started gunning the Impala to get around an SUV trying to outrace them, even though the two entrance lanes had already merged into one. There was no danger of her getting scratched this time; Dean knew the guy would fall back once Dean pulled ahead. Sam gave him that look, and Dean dropped back, letting the SUV win. 

There was a long, pregnant silence in the car. "I'm not that bad!" Dean finally burst out. "Seriously! A guy driving a car as cool and powerful as Baby, what do you expect? That I go around driving like a grandma--like you?? Except when you were soulless, so I know you've got it in you, Sam."

"You'd kill me if I drove Baby any other way."

"Well--well, of course! Only I get to drive her like--"

Sam just raised an eyebrow and didn't say a word. Now Dean was sure. Sam knew all along exactly what he was doing.

"Like--oh, shut up. You just shut it, Sam."

**Author's Note:**

> This story was conceived and then written on the road (albeit different roads), when I saw said hipster/stoner with the fancy beard force his way into traffic on the highway when there was plenty of room elsewhere, acting nervous, driving a short black Subaru (internet research indicates maybe it was a Subaru WRX sti hatchback 2008? Maybe?? Any car aficionados with info, I'd love to hear from you on the subject, because I've never seen a Subaru like it). Scarcely a minute later, I saw the businessman in khakis on a tiny motorcycle sitting up perfectly straight, and this fic was born. 
> 
> Maybe, just maybe, I'd encountered a lot of bad drivers on the road that day.


End file.
